Galsworthy Appeals to the Nation

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 52, 24 November 1928, Page 17

Galsworthy Appeals to the Nation

Mr. John Galsworthy recently paid a visit to a mining district and was moved to write the following letter to the “Manchester Guaardian” and the “Daily Telegraph”:

(JT HAVE recently visited a mining village, which shall be nameless, I wh4re two collieries are closed and a third wavers on the brink, I so that some three-quarters of the miners are unemployed and the JL whole may quite possibly soon become so. And I shall be grateful

if you will let me express a few of the thoughts that have risen in my mind. I am not an expert on the coal question, and am well aware of the vast intricacy of the subject. I am not a politician and belong to no party. What I have to say concerns mainly the human side of the situation as it now is.

“Whichever view—capitalistic or socialistic —be taken of our national life, we have surely reached a stage of development when any great disturbance in the fields of industry must be accounted of national concern. No one will now deny that the coal Industry, the largest after agriculture in which we Indulge, is passing through a great evolutionary disturbance, causing fearful anxiety and distress among a huge section of our people. “Out of nearly 1,200,000 employed in that industry nearly 300,000 are now unemployed, of whom over 200,000 must be regarded as permanently unemployed. This, with women and children, means a million people are affected. The prospects of British coal are not likely to be rosier for some years at least, and unemployment may become even more I severe. Individualists and Socialists—we are as a nation bound to assist to the best of our power this huge section of our countrymen who have fallen on evil days through forces utterly beyond their individual control. ' “The long-continuing coal crisis might possibly have been avoided by the sort of foresight and goodwill which is not too conspicuous in human affairs. That is not the point. It exists, it is daily. growing more acute, more distressing to those who directly suffer from it, more dangerous to the general life of the nation. What so far has been done about it? .. . - “Now, Sir, certain thoughts have crystallised within me: Coal—whether owned by the nation or by private individuals—is a national resource, and it should not be possible for any private individual or company to finally abandon any pit by a stroke of the pen without referring the decision to the Ministry of Mines, or some other duly constituted authority representing the nation. A man may fail in an ordinary business and no national harm done; but where his failure means the final abandonment of a national source of wealth, he should not be allowed to fail in the present arbitrary manner, which at a stroke destroys the livelihood of hundreds, perhaps

thousands, of his fellow-creatures. The decision for such abandonments should be nationally adopted, or at least ratified.

Another thought is this: We ar.e continually hearing about the difficulty of restoring our agriculture, and of finding suitable British emigrants for the Dominions. We have two hundred thousand miners permanently out of employment, a number which is likely to increase. Of these over thirty thousand will be youths from 14 up to 22 I take the latter age because till then they are probably not married. “Is it beyond statesmanship to devise a scheme of agricultural training here and in the Dominions for those thirty and more thousand youths, strong, and accustomed to hard work? I do not say that they would jump at it, because mining is in their blood, but if the movement were firmly started its appeal would grow stronger every month; and it would go far to stop the rot which is now going on in thousands of young fellows eating their hearts out. < “The Government already have two training centres in East Anglia; why not increase them tenfold? ... “And while on the subject of agricultural training as a palliative, I Would ask; Why cannot the wartime allotment policy be revived for the benefit of the older unemployed miners? What better, more helpful, and more profitable work can men forced into idleness do than this? To say that it is no good for a man to take up an allotment when he does not know his fate from day to day is nonsense. If he finds a permanent job or is transferred another unemployed will glady take on his allotment. “I do not know how far land is available in all or most of the districts where miners are unemployed; but wherever land is available this is a palliative that leaps to the eye. The decay of the. war-time allotment development has been a national calamity, and here is a chance of redressing this calamity to some extent, while providing an admirable and profitable occupation, good for both the minds and for the bodies of men forced into utter and demoralising idleness. “Any great evolutionary disturbance in the fields of industry is of national concern; and we ought to stand by each other, putting class and party politics aside. Evolution is a cruel thing, and when it is in savage operation, as here, our best instincts alone guide us to the healing of the wounds it inflicts.

.“The patience and endurance of the miners in their troubles makes me, at least, feel that I would be proud if they looked on me as a friend.”